Trends

Air pollution is the concentration of very small size particulate matter in air which is responsible for various respiratory diseases, some of them prove deadly to several persons of the society. Generally the air pollution level is high in urban cities. Recently WHO published a report on air pollution and it wasn’t very surprising to know that Pakistan is leading the world in this area followed by various Asian countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Egypt and others.

The primary responsible stakeholders or air pollution include industrial revolution, increased birth rate and lack of awareness regarding the air pollution in under-developed countries. There is one other stakeholder that needs to be mentioned separately and that is the behavior of people. This behavior includes the behavior of people living inside these countries and additionally the behavior of nations intruding these areas.

As far as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran is concerned, the last factor plays a vital role. Afghanistan has been the land of unexpected, thrilling, unexpected and unpleasant adventurous incidences since the pre-historic era. At times Russians intrude the land, then talibans come forward to take hold and then USA strikes are observed later and in recent years. Whenever I hear the news of a bomb explosion, I wonder how much environmental damage would it have caused. The air strikes, use of armor, collapsed civil structures, drones, transportation carbon emissions and the list goes on.

Islamic Democratic Pakistan has always been enjoying the benefits of it geographical location. But when you accept something, you have to accept the entire package. The environmental issues are getting worse day by day in the country regarding every sort of environment including political environment, educational environment, social environment, economic environment, industrial environment and now hats off to the country, it has become a legendary leader in atmospheric environmental pollution as well. And the people of Pakistan whether be the industrialist, politician, military representative, researcher, bureaucrat, or a mere bloody civilian all have contributed great efforts to take the country to the verge of disaster in every aspect of life.

The same circumstances and the same behavioral attitudes prove true for other under developed Asian countries. When I write, it sometimes seems to me that I am an anti-states or anti-europe person because I take time to observe the outcomes of foreign intrusions with less a distance but the fact of the matter is it is not the outsider that causes the damage, it’s always the insider. Because devil always lies inside the chest.

Hearing the word ‘moonwalk’ triggers the memory of Michael Jackson performing the illusion of going backwards while actually moving forward. However Moonwalking with Einstein triggers a question like what the hell are we exactly talking about?

This triggering game is a very classic of mind’s games. While discussing something with a group of people around, I actually tell my brain to trigger the correct names, dates, locations and sequences. At times, it presents the contents right in time while at others, well hats off to smartphones, laptops and availability of internet.

But taking assistance for something you should have at your fingertips feels like using a cheat code while playing some game. You read some book and by the time you finish all the detailed chapters, it happens sometimes, all you are left with is just an overview synopsis of the entire story. When it happens to me, I ask myself just to read the overview from now on. What’s the point of reading the entire detailed book when in the end all I will be left with is just the overview of the entire story?

Luckily I didn’t quit reading when one day I read a title Moonwalking with Einstein. The ‘overview’ said that it’s about an ordinary journalist who happened to cover the mnemonic competition held at Oxford University got inspired by some geeks expert in remembering and recalling anything and everything in no time and he ended up winning the championship.

The idea of remembering and recalling anything and everything glared my brain and I started reading the book. Though the book was more like the autobiography of the author but in the end it came clear to me that if I have to be good to at making my mind obeying the orders of triggering memories, I must really practice the following advice.

None of the techniques of memory sharpening will work unless you start ‘Paying Attention’ to what you are going through. 😀

We all live in an age of hi-tech gadgets, smart devices and in a global village with an ongoing war on cultural reforms. We catch too much each moment, the news, media, entertainment, blogs, forums, columns, seminars, technological updates, advancements in medicines, weather forecasts, stock market trends and the list goes on. Technology that was considered magnificent in its youth is now termed as ‘classic’. Classic cars, telephones with a dial, music players, and type writers are some examples of the old stuff.

However there are some things that I can neither put into the old classy category nor into the state of the art technological stuff, paper & pen and human brain, for instance. In my earlier school days my teachers used to advise students not to cram, rather understand the concepts and I always used to ask myself how am I supposed to put the understood concept to work if I haven’t memorized it and I’d have to cram it for the purpose stated.

Then came the idea of open book tests, which unfortunately I could not experience at least in my educational career. I had to memorize most of the stuff and surprisingly I still put that crammed stuff to use and I enjoy doing so. Before the era of modern communications, there were classy telephone sets with a dial. I used to remember all my friends phone number, we didn’t use to have very long conversations but we knew the statuses surprisingly without even Facebook.

Then the era of technology flooded every aspect of life. Internet from dial up to hi speed broadband and wireless networks, cell phones from simple sets to today’s smart phones, computers from personal computers to smart tablets, gadgets from a wrist watch to Samsung gear. People welcomed the revolution with open arms and close minds. Everything new introduced in the market has now become a status symbol.

Running this technological marathon, I forgot when did I start to surrender myself to this technology, when did I start to stop memorizing rather stop ‘cramming’ my friends telephone numbers, when did I start preferring to store the moments inside my cell phone rather than inside my brain, when did I start to look at the scene through the lens of my cell phone camera rather than the lens of my eyes, when did I start letting this technology live my life instead of me, when did I start letting these gadgets take over my mind and memories, when did I start getting addicted to this newly introduced technology and when did i stop considering what I had crammed a very long ago.

And what I crammed was: Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism (or technology in current scenario).